


A Final Flight

by Nilysil



Series: The Sky Comes for Those Who Wait [1]
Category: Brigadoon: Marin & Melan
Genre: Continues from last episode, Gen, time lapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 17:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4969390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilysil/pseuds/Nilysil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a final goodbye, Melan and Marin are separated once more - this time for 100 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Final Flight

In place of a single knot Marin ties two, pulling the ends of the hair scarf as hard as she could around the notch in his sword. More so to comfort herself, she gives them another tug already knowing for certain that it’ll last there for a year in Brigadoon. With each tug on the red fabric a similar one echoes and coils at the pit of her heart – ones that she keeps swallowing down. The remnants of the earlier tears are still plastered to her cheeks, still slightly fogging the handiwork of her scarf around his golden blade. The hole in the water – the last doorway to Brigadoon – she can see clearly past her fogged glasses.

“Marin,” a paw-padded cup coils up and rests on her hands, “are you okay with this?”

“I – yeah. Yes … yes, I am. How long until it’s … too small for you to fit through?”

A soft sigh breathes from Melan’s joints, “not too much longer.”

“I see,” another tugging at the base of her chest. “Melan?”

“Hm?”

“You think … do you think there is enough time for one more flight? A quick one?” Marin bites at her lip, torn between wanting a ‘no’ or a ‘yes’. Just a bit more time, a bit more time they can spend together, before he returns to Brigadoon. Delaying their final goodbye. Paw-padded cups coil around her waist and bring her up as Melan stands – another mechanical sigh rolls through his body.

“A short flight, yes, there is but,” Melan’s wings deploy and they begin to ascend. “Is there a reason why, Marin?”

“It’s …” inside her head she stumbles over what to say, “to spend a bit more time together.” Looking pass the edges of her hair Marin traces Melan’s face into her memory. Dim blue skin, bright red eyes, the remnants of the tears he shed. With one hand she reaches up and runs a finger across the line of his jaw and to the path the tears took. She applies a little pressure and wipes away a portion of the tear’s tracks – it’s then that she realizes they’ve stopped ascending and Melan’s staring.

“What are you doing, Marin?”

“I-! Uh, um, you had something on your face and I – oh,” her cheeks run red and she cups her face beneath her glasses. “To the beach and back, if there’s time for it?” With them above the trees, and a little higher, the Pacific Ocean was in sight. On the way to the ocean Melan flies them higher, Marin holding out her arms from the position on his chest. The chill of the early autumn sky is brushed off by the heat radiating off of Melan, Marin happily chirping into the air. At first Melan dips side to side slightly but with encouragement from Marin the dips become banks, Marin cheering as they flew in and out of the clouds. High above the joining of the coastline and the sea Melan makes a looping turn, Marin screaming the whole way through.

“Marin?” Melan slows his speed.

“I’m okay, Melan!” Marin stretches out her limbs and lets out another chirp, “that was fun!”

“It sounded like you were scared.”

Marin looks up Melan with a toothy grin, "I'm never scared when you're around, Melan. And sometimes people scream when they're having fun!" Above her Melan smiles, increasing his speed to before; taking them through the clouds in loops, dives, and sharp turns. Marin's shrill cheers eggs Melan on, lowly taking them closer and closer to the ground - to the clearing, the waterfall, and the last way back to Brigadoon. The treetops rattle against the twirling air, twigs and small leaves catching themselves in Marin's hair.

As their descent and speed slows Marin picks debris out of her hair, chattering about nothing in particular. She jumps from topic to topic, throwing out ideas at random of what they'd do in a hundred years casually, as if she was planning for tomorrow. Melan, on the other hand, looked between the hair scarf around the notch in his sword arm and Marin. Uncertain of how to explain his reasoning, or why he felt like doing what he does.

Behind her, Marin hears a familiar cannon fire - and turns.

The frontward part of Melan's sword laid in the grass, and the tip of his cannon barrel was against a now broken part of his sword arm. "Melan!" she runs over, holding onto his gun arm, "what are you doing?"

"I... don't know." His body sighs when he kneels, one pad reaching across the grass to the removed section of his sword. "But I want you to take this, Marin," and the pad holds the golden blade tip flat out to Marin. The look of concern washes off of Marin's face, for a moment replaced by confusion, and then by a smile. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No, silly," Marin takes the blade tip with one hand and with another licks her thumb, rubbing her finger against the tear stains on Melan's face. "I never thought you'd be one for 'going-away' presents." In this better position Marin smudges away the remaining tear trails, working off every little bit that remains on his skin. "It's not like we won't see each other again," a partial smile slowly twists into a frown, her thumb stopping - she looks down to the ground. What if this is the last time they see each other?

A pad reaches up past her arm and to her face. "Marin, we'll see each other again, I'm certain," the pad rubs away a beginning tear.

Marin raises her head, and rubs away the moisture near her eyes with the wrist of her other hand. "Mh! Now hold still, Melan." Marin returns to clearing his face of the tear trails, "Melan, thank you for finding me, for just the way I am." Cleaning Melan's face doesn't take very long, even when Marin tries to take just a little bit longer - she knows she's kidding herself on extending their time together - so she finishes. "There we go! Already to go back to Brigadoon."

A moment of pause, and Melan says, "What does the liquid mean, Marin?"

"Huh?"

"What you removed from my face."

"Oh, those. Those are tears; they come from many things. Laughing, anger, sadness, pain."

"Is there a way to tell them apart?"

"Well," Marin grips at her chest above her heart, "sadness, and pain, are felt inside the chest; laughter from the stomach; anger ... I'm not sure."

"Earlier, I was feeling sadness and pain, then?" Melan's body sighs when he stands.

"Yes, probably, I'm not sure."

"I'll miss being by your side, Marin. I want to see you again, for the next day of Pasca."

"I promise, I'll be waiting for you, Melan!" Before Melan vanishes through the doorway to Brigadoon, Marin catches sight of his smile, and then she's alone - holding onto the golden blade edge. The silence and her own smile starts to wash away soon after, Marin clutching the blade tightly in her hands. Speckles of tears blotch her hands and her dress, crashing down onto her knees into the grass and dirt.

This time.

This time it's different from all the other times they've been separated.

This time, Marin knows how long it'd be before they reunite.

This time, Marin knows for certain he'll be fine.

He has Lolo, Pyon, and Eryun.

This time, they're separated for good.

For the next hundred years.

So she lays down, curls into a ball with the blade tucked into her hands, and cries. And Marin falls asleep in the grass.

* * *

By the time she wakes the sun has already begun to set. With the back of her hand Marin rubs away the tears stinging at her eyes. No good can come from waiting in the woods for the next hundred years, she reasons, and heads back to the tenement house with the golden blade held tightly to her chest.

* * *

The streetlights lightly aluminates the dusk tinted pavement, Marin's bare feet pat-pattering the sidewalk across from a pile of debris left over from the Mutual Collapse. Around the corner sat a dump truck half filled with small pieces of debris. A member of the clean-up crew waves over and thanks her for saving the world before returning to work. Marin leaves the site with a small smile, reminding herself of all the lives she and Melan saved.

She keeps up the positivity all the way to the tenement house, calling out her arrival. On the boards outside the tenement entrance she sits down, putting Melan's sword blade down besides her while she rubs some senses back into her bare feet.

"Ow ow ow," she finds a tender spot at the heel of her left foot, falling backwards onto the wood planks. For a few minutes she lays there with her foot still in hand.

"Marin, supper is ready," calls Miyuki, pulling away the bottle of sake Tadashi started reaching for.

"Okay," Marin sits up and releases her foot, cringing as she places it on the ground. 'Reminder,' she tells herself, 'always wear socks and shoes.' She forces herself up with the sword blade in one hand and starts to where the other tenants were having supper. Marin takes careful steps to her spot at one end of the table and places the blade down beside her bowl of rice.

"Is that...?" it was Shuta, and he picks up the golden blade.

"Melan's, yes," Marin starts on her rice, watching Shuta inspect the blade with a new strange gadget he might've been showing off before she came home. "I don't know why, but he gave me a part of his sword."

"Hm, since you're going to keep it," Marin gives him a stare, "how about if it's given a handle, or a sheath?"

"Are you sure you can do that, grandpa Shuta?"

"I'm not an inventor for nothing! I'm sure I can figure a way to give it a handle." Shuta places the blade back down by Marin. "I know how to fix it, so I'll just need to reverse the knowledge."

"It's a sweet keepsake he gave you, Marin," says Miyuki, "I'm certain that was his intention."

"Yeah," Marin turns her focus back to her rice.

* * *

The next morning Marin was awoken by a loud metallic ding and Shuta shouting something between coughing fits. After crawling out from bed, her hair a mess, Marin looks over to the make-shift bolter stood up a few meters away. "Grandpa Shuta?"

"Ah, Marin," Shuta waves away some of the smoke made by the bolter's power source. "Good morning, no progress yet," he motions to the barely scratched blade pinned beneath a more bent piece of steel.

"Um, wouldn't a drill work better?" A bit of silence.

"Oh, you're right, Marin! A drill would work a lot better." He lets out a defeated sigh, muttering beneath his breath, "back to the drawing board."

"Could I have it? The blade," Marin rubs away some tired from eyes, "Melan's blade, I... just want to keep it with me for now."

"No problem, Marin, just need to-" Shuta struggles to pull a lever, one that releases the blade with a loud pop and another puff of smoke. Shuta and Marin wave away the smoke, Shuta coughing through it and Marin holding the neck of her shirt over her nose. "Ah, there we go. I think, maybe, by tonight I can give it another try."

Marin plucks the golden blade from the flat surface of make-shift bolter, "Alright, I should be home before then." Shuta gives her a nod before turning back to the bolter, a hand against his beard as he thinks over the design again.

* * *

At school Marin kept Melan's blade in the frontward pocket of her new secondhand messenger bag, out of sight but in a place Marin could place her hand and feel a bit better. Throughout the day, between lessons, she took a moment to pull the messenger bag onto her lap and just hold her hands over the spot the blade laid. She tries to kept it a secret, but A-ko and her cohorts catch on.

After lunch, A-ko yanks the bag away from Marin's desk.

"Hey!"

"What is it, Asagi, have some 'charm' hidden away in the front pocket?" A-ko waves the bag out of Marin's reach, turning away from each desperate grasp Marin takes.

"It's nothing like that, just give me back my bag!"

"Well it must be something that's important to you," A-ko moves behind her friends, letting them hold Marin back as she put the bag down and fished around in the front pocket. There was a small coin purse with some yen, a few half-used pens, and the golden blade. A-ko stares at it inside the bag, memory returning to the time she was chased by a flying blue monster.

Then she pulls it out of the bag and Marin freezes.

"Oh, what is this, Asagi took a knife to school? Well, that's certainly grounds for expulsion," she takes a couple steps back when Marin struggles against her friends. "What were you planning to do with it, Asagi?" A-ko starts to laugh.

"Nothing! I just like keeping it around," Marin struggles against A-ko's friend's, nearly kneeing one in the hip. A-ko stops laughing when a hand grabs her wrist and pulls the blade away.

"Hey, Kabamoto! I was just having some fun."

"No, you weren't," Kabamoto takes the bag from the desk as well, zipping the golden blade into the front pocket again - and shoves past A-ko's pals to give Marin back her bag. "It'll be best to tell the principle, Asagi," he catches a glance to A-ko and her friends, the former giving him a glare.

Marin holds her bag to her chest, both arms tightly wrapped around each side with the blade's outline laid against her. Slowly, she nods, and walks out and around to the principal’s office.

* * *

"I wish I had a keepsake like that, Marin," Moe swung her legs over the side of the short concrete wall, taking the ice pop half Marin hands her.

"I don’t know if I'd call it a keepsake," Marin states before hauling herself up beside Moe, her bag drooping against her side. "Though, I mean could it be his 'mark of promise' to me? I don't know what to think, Moe."

"Hm? 'Mark of promise'?"

"Oh, uh yeah, it started when he first fought Pyon, another Monomakia like Melan. I wanted Melan to come back safe so... I tied my hair scarf around his sword."

"That's so sweet of you, Marin!"

"Um, yeah, I guess. I mean it just started becoming a habit between us, for when we separate I tie my hair scarf around his sword... I guess Melan wanted to give me something like that in return?"

"I think he wanted to protect you even while he can't be around!"

"Huh?"

"Melan's been protecting you for so long, Marin, since he can' be around to protect you himself he gave you a piece of himself, like what you did each time with your hair-scarf!"

"I guess, Moe," Marin munches on the popsicle, watching the clouds pass by. The rustle of leaves makes up the ambience, along with distant noises of traffic and construction. "I can't believe it's already October."

"You were gone for a while, Marin. Almost two weeks after you went up in that rocket, and I think a couple days before everything calmed down and the sky stopped falling." The quiet returns to them, Marin gnawing on the ice pop while she thinks.

Was the time difference really that noticeable?

"I don't remember being gone for that long, Moe."

"How was it?"

"Huh?"

"Brigadoon, and that other place, what was it?"

"Submaton Color, it's between Brigadoon and here. Brigadoon, wasn't all that nice, on either visit, because of the whole saving the world stuff. Submaton Color though, I wish I could visit it with you Moe," Marin takes out Melan's blade piece, dropping her bag on the ground beside Moe's. "It was so pretty there, and so many things to eat!"

"Like what?"

"Flying juice things, plants with rice like Grandma's rice balls, plants with chocolate growing on it, ramen - I didn't try the ramen plant."

"How long will you have to wait, Marin?"

"A hundred years."

Moe nearly drops her ice pop in her surprise, " a hundred years!?"

Marin nods, " a hundred years. It takes that long for Brigadoon and Earth to get that close again, and for the next day of Pasca."

"What’s Pasca?"

"It's - well it was one of the reasons why me and Melan met. I was supposed to be Creis, an important person to the Pasca ritual. But I just ... wasn't. But me and the real Creis, Marine, we could've been twins!"

"I don't think I could handle two Marins," Moe giggles.

"But thanks to me and Melan, we saved everyone... well, saved everyone on Brigadoon, the Pasca ritual doesn't seem to affect Earth like it did with Brigadoon."

"What do you mean, Marin?"

"I died up there, Moe; me, Poikun, Lolo, I'm guessing Pyon and Eryun too, and Melan." Marin screeches when a set of arms wrap themselves around her and drops her ice pop.

"Marin died?! How could Marin die, Melan was there to protect you!" Moe had latched herself around Marin, her head buried into Marin's side. "If Melan isn't around to protect you, Marin, I'll be here. I'll protect Marin!"

Marin was silent, unsure what to say.

"Even if Marin wasn't an important person to save the world, you're an important person to me, and to Melan too! I'm sure of it, that's why he did what he did." Moe moves back and lets Marin go and resettle herself. "Ah, did I hold on too tight? I'm sorry, Marin."

"It's fine, Moe, just was sudden." Marin holds up the portion of Melan's blade. "Grandpa Shuta was thinking of making a handle for it, what do you think?"

"I think it's a great idea, would be a lot easier to hold." Moe watches a cloud, finishing her ice pop. "Hey, Marin, I was thinking we could go shopping together, this weekend."

"For what?"

"For clothing, get you something nice."

"If your mother is okay with it, we can, Moe."


End file.
